Spring has come to Ryswyck Academy, and everyone has adjustments to make in the wake of the previous winter's cataclysmic events. Maintaining a fragile armistice isn't easy, and many Ryswyckians—and their Berenian guests—are nursing wounds both visible and invisible. For Captain Speir, depleted and apprehensive about her uncertain future, it's easier to worry about Douglas and his exhausting labors. But shouldering a duty of care has its perils. Is there really such a thing as a wounded healer? Has her insight deserted her for ever? Speir needs light—for Ryswyck's sake as well as her own. But the simplest need might well be the hardest one to meet.